Obscure Bands – Mighty Baby

Mighty Baby were an English psychedelic rock band formed in London in January 1969 out of the remains of The Action, a highly regarded North London group that had begun in 1963 as the Boys and had developed a strong following among the British mod and R&B audience.

The Action had been signed to Parlophone by George Martin in 1965 and recorded a series of singles, but its commercial success never matched its reputation among musicians and fans. By 1967, the group’s music was changing dramatically. Guitarist Martin Stone, formerly of the Savoy Brown Blues Band, had joined, and keyboardist, flutist and saxophonist Ian Whiteman became involved as well.

The Action moved away from its original soul and R&B sound toward psychedelic rock, folk, longer instrumental passages and increasingly experimental arrangements. Singer Reg King left in 1968 to pursue a solo career, leaving Alan “Bam” King increasingly responsible for vocals. The remaining musicians briefly operated under names including Azoth before signing with the newly established Head Records. Label head John Curd gave them the name Mighty Baby, and the new band’s first performance under that name

took place at London’s Roundhouse in January 1969, where they supported Fairport Convention. The lineup consisted of Alan “Bam” King on guitar and vocals, Martin Stone on lead and slide guitar, Ian Whiteman on keyboards, flute and saxophone, Mike “Ace” Evans on bass, and Roger Powell on drums. These five musicians remained the core of Mighty Baby throughout its entire existence. The change from The Action to Mighty Baby was much more than a change of name. The Action had been essentially a mod-soul band,

while Mighty Baby developed into a loose, exploratory psychedelic group that absorbed folk, blues, country, jazz and early progressive-rock influences. Martin Stone’s guitar playing was particularly important to the sound, while Whiteman’s flute, organ, piano and saxophone gave the music an unusual texture. The group was not particularly interested in conventional pop structures, and its songs could develop through extended instrumental passages and changing tempos rather than simply moving through verse-and-chorus arrangements.

Their first album, Mighty Baby, was recorded during 1969 and produced by Guy Stevens. It was released by Head Records in November 1969 in Britain and received considerable praise from the underground music press, but the small independent label lacked the distribution and promotional resources necessary to turn that critical attention into substantial sales.

The album contained eight original songs, including “Egyptian Tomb,” “A Friend You Know but Never See,” “I’ve Been Down So Long,” “Same Way from the Sun,” “House Without Windows,” “Trials of a City,” “I’m from the Country” and “At a Point Between Fate and Destiny.”

Although it attracted little attention from the mainstream record-buying public, the album gradually acquired a reputation as one of the more interesting British psychedelic records of its period. Mighty Baby also had a surprisingly productive existence outside their own records. Because their album did not sell in significant numbers and their record company was struggling,

the members supplemented their income with studio work and sessions for other musicians. They participated in recordings associated with Keith Christmas, Robin Scott, Andy Roberts, Shelagh McDonald, Sandy Denny and Gary Farr, among others. Their musical development also continued through live performances, where they could stretch the material considerably

beyond the relatively controlled versions found on their studio recordings. In 1970 they recorded demos for a proposed second album tentatively titled Day of the Soup, but that project was abandoned. Those recordings eventually became available decades later and demonstrate how far the group was moving toward extended improvisation.

The surviving material includes “Winter Passes” and the multipart “Now You Don’t,” providing an important missing link between the first album and the music that would eventually appear on A Jug of Love.

Mighty Baby’s second and final studio album, A Jug of Love, appeared on Mike Vernon’s Blue Horizon label in October 1971. By then the group had moved even further from its original psychedelic-rock approach toward a relaxed combination of folk-rock, blues, country influences, jazz-oriented improvisation and spiritual themes.

The album consisted of six lengthy pieces: “Jug of Love,” “The Happiest Man in the Carnival,” “Keep on Juggin’,” “Virgin Spring,” “Tasting the Life” and “Slipstreams.” The title and much of the group’s later outlook reflected its increasing interest in Sufi thought and Islam. Several members had converted to Islam, and spirituality became an

important part of their lives as the band progressed. This did not produce conventional religious rock music; instead, it contributed to the increasingly contemplative, improvisational character of their performances. The album was an even less commercial proposition than the first, but it has subsequently become highly regarded by listeners interested in British underground rock. The group’s singles were extremely scarce. “Egyptian Tomb” backed with “I’m from the Country” was issued as a French/Dutch single

around 1970, while “Devil’s Whisper” backed with “Virgin Spring” appeared on Blue Horizon in 1971. Neither became a chart success, and Mighty Baby never had anything resembling a mainstream hit. Their lack of commercial recognition is one of the principal reasons they became so obscure. Even during their active years, they were much better known among musicians, underground audiences and serious record

collectors than among the general public. Their music was too unconventional for the pop market, their record labels lacked the resources of the major companies, and the band itself showed little interest in turning its music into a commercially accessible product. In that sense, Mighty Baby were almost perfectly positioned to disappear from public view when the original psychedelic era ended. One of their most important appearances came at the 1971 Glastonbury Festival, where Mighty Baby performed

alongside artists including David Bowie, Traffic, Family, Fairport Convention, Gong and Hawkwind. Their performance demonstrated why the band could have a much greater impact on an audience than its tiny discography might suggest. The surviving Glastonbury recordings include “Virgin Spring,” “Goin’ Down to Mongoli,” “Woe Is Me,” “Lazy Days,” “Devil’s Whisper” and

the extraordinarily long “A Blanket in My Muesli,” which incorporates an extended performance related to John Coltrane’s “India.” The surviving version of “A Blanket in My Muesli” runs for approximately thirty-seven minutes and moves through quieter passages, flute and guitar interplay and increasingly intense improvisation. The recordings provide an important picture of Mighty Baby as a live band rather than simply as the makers of two studio albums. By the end of 1971, Mighty Baby had broken up.

The combination of their increasingly spiritual lives and the practical demands of being a performing rock band had become difficult to maintain. The breakup brought to an end a remarkably brief career: only about three years under the Mighty Baby name, during which the band produced two official studio albums and a very small number of singles.

The musicians nevertheless continued to have substantial careers. Alan “Bam” King became a founding member of Ace and achieved a major international success in 1975 with “How Long,” which he wrote and sang. Martin Stone later became a member of Chilli Willi and the Red Hot Peppers and remained active in music until his death in 2016. Ian Whiteman, Mike Evans and Roger Powell continued working together in various projects, including the Sufi-influenced group Habibiyya.

Evans and Whiteman also later worked with Richard and Linda Thompson. The remarkable thing about Mighty Baby is how much music eventually emerged from a band that originally seemed to have almost disappeared. Their two albums were difficult to find for many years, and original copies became prized by collectors of British psychedelic and progressive music.

Their obscurity was therefore gradually transformed into something approaching cult status. Later reissues made the music accessible to a much wider audience, and the 2019 six-CD collection At a Point Between Fate and Destiny: The Complete Recordings finally brought together virtually the entire surviving story. The set includes Mighty Baby, A Jug of Love, the “Devil’s Whisper” single, the French/Dutch single recordings, rehearsals, the abandoned Day of the Soup material,

live recordings from 1970 and 1971, and an extensive selection from their Glastonbury performance. It also includes previously unreleased material and a detailed historical booklet. What had once amounted to two obscure albums could therefore finally be heard as the work of a developing band rather than as two isolated records. Mighty Baby’s story is particularly fascinating because it represents

a complete transformation of one musical identity into another. The musicians who had begun as The Action playing soul and R&B for the British mod audience became, within a few years, an experimental psychedelic band exploring folk, blues, jazz, country, improvisation and spirituality. They never achieved the commercial recognition of better-known contemporaries,

but their lack of commercial success was not an indication of a lack of ambition or musical ability. Their two albums, the abandoned Day of the Soup recordings and the surviving live performances reveal a band continually searching for something beyond conventional rock music. That combination of limited commercial exposure, scarce original releases, unusual musical ideas and later rediscovery is what has made Mighty Baby one of the enduring cult bands of British underground rock.